I thought i knew what a broken educational system is...
The Story of Engineering Education in India
31–40 of 64 posts
Re: The Story of Engineering Education in India
#32One of my colleagues was taking an interview of a potential candidate who listed "Python" as a core programming language. This is similar to most interviews I've been part of. Here's how it went - Interviewer : Name some data structures in Python Interviewee : Same as C, C++ Interviewer : Can you name some specific data structures? For example, have you heard about lists? Interviewee : I haven't heard about lists in…
Why would your colleague waste time on further questions when the interviewee answered that he hasn't heard of lists in python? btw Python's indentation requirement is a difference with C though whether it's a key difference or not is debatable.
Given all of the differences between Python and C, I don't think it's even debatable whether or not the indentation rules in Python are the key difference. I'd say that typing and interpreted vs compiled are both so much more important.
Re: The Story of Engineering Education in India
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Software can have jobs where the work involved is "crank the handle, produce output", but the majority of them do indeed require the ability to solve problems. I interviewed one candidate several years ago, and the question was: "How do you ensure that your program works as intended?". Hoping to get answers like "I write unit tests, integration tests, test scaffolds" or even "I exercise it with different inputs", wha…
I actually blame the people who hire such idiots. Their lack of knowledge is not the problem. Their lack of curiosity is. Their lack of self-motivation is. Even for "crank the handle, produce output" type of jobs, it's a bad strategy to hire idiots since they will not be doing such jobs for the rest of their lives. Projects change. clients change. Technology changes, and only people with at least a minimal amount of…
Right - the question is pretty open ended, with lots of potential areas to explore after getting a basic answer.
As a potential employer, I'm happy to help them learn, but I'm not going to spoon-feed them. If someone is profoundly incurious, maybe they'd be better off working somewhere else. Or in another career field.
Re: The Story of Engineering Education in India
#34Having interviewed 100+ candidates in past 2 years for my own startup and a similar number before in my previous job, I completely understand what the author is trying to say. Believe me when I say that 90% of my interviews simply stop at the first question (Can you write a function in C which given an integer array and its size as arguments, returns the number of zeros in an array?). My interview then turns in a sma…
Are you really programming in C? If so, good for you and your organization. If not, i suggest not wasting time becoming a career counselor and try finding a faster way to eliminate idiots. I don't buy the crap that they have not been taught in collage. In the age of the internet, there are so many damn resources on every language possible on the internet that a person claiming that they know how to code in c should h…
That was presumptuous on your part. First I shall talk about C. 2 reasons.
1.Any engineering graduate in India should know C. It is the first language they learn and use in curriculum.
2. We work in embedded and kernel domain. Welcome to a world where C is important.
Also it is not about deep understanding of pointers and stuff like that. The sad part is that most of them can't even write it in pseudo code.
As for the question of you not buying it, I can't convince you except that there are other commenters in this thread who have pointed out the same problem. This problem does exist.
Re: The Story of Engineering Education in India
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
//Seats denied to general category students due to reservations// I mostly agree with the rest of your post, but bundling the reservation system among corruptions is naive and mischievous. Reservations for the low caste were gained after a long struggle for their social justice.
No it's not. 'naive' and 'mischievous' don't mean what you think they mean, and the author of the parent post did not claim anything of that sort. It's just that your opinions differ and you want to throw some idiotic words at the author's post.
I quoted what the poster said.
It is _naive_ for a person born into low caste, to believe that the reservation system is corrupt.
On the other hand it is _mischievous_ for the elitist to claim that it is corrupt. Indian popular media and the justice system which are disproportionately occupied by the elitists, have been successful in their propaganda to make the younger generation think that it is wrong to utilize the reservations.
Re: The Story of Engineering Education in India
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's not. 'naive' and 'mischievous' don't mean what you think they mean, and the author of the parent post did not claim anything of that sort. It's just that your opinions differ and you want to throw some idiotic words at the author's post.
I quoted what the poster said. It is _naive_ for a person born into low caste, to believe that the reservation system is corrupt. On the other hand it is _mischievous_ for the elitist to claim that it is corrupt. Indian popular media and the justice system which are disproportionately occupied by the elitists, have been successful in their propaganda to make the younger generation think that it is wrong to utilize th…
No he didn't. Don't just make shit up.
And, by the way, the constitution of india enjoins every indian to be treated equally. If you don't understand that concept, and only view life through casteist eyes, then you are in for a sad, bigoted future.
Re: The Story of Engineering Education in India
#37This post captures very accurately the engineering education scene in India. I would add that many students today are actually aware of what they are getting into (Most of the times, they don’t need engineers but mere “coders”). Unless they are living under a rock, their predecessors have already told them that by now. Going further the students who were pressurized to take up engineering are now using these jobs as…
I am sure 'project management', especially in Indian outsourcer firm's context (managing people + forwarding messages to and from them and customers to conceal the fact how dumb the coders are) is long-term, a much worse of a hole than working for the same outsourcing firm as a coder. Because it doesn't give one any marketable skills, and slowly turns him into a neurotic.
Re: The Story of Engineering Education in India
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you really programming in C? If so, good for you and your organization. If not, i suggest not wasting time becoming a career counselor and try finding a faster way to eliminate idiots. I don't buy the crap that they have not been taught in collage. In the age of the internet, there are so many damn resources on every language possible on the internet that a person claiming that they know how to code in c should h…
That was presumptuous on your part. First I shall talk about C. 2 reasons. 1.Any engineering graduate in India should know C. It is the first language they learn and use in curriculum. 2. We work in embedded and kernel domain. Welcome to a world where C is important. Also it is not about deep understanding of pointers and stuff like that. The sad part is that most of them can't even write it in pseudo code. As for th…
Wow. Dude, you really need to learn how to parse english.
1) When i said, "i don't buy that..." i was referring to people blaming the collage or university for their own lack of knowledge.
In today's world where the internet is available to everyone with a net connection, i would expect people to use some initiative, go online, search for C sources or tutorials, download free compilers and linkers, learn them thoroughly etc. ie The real blame for their lack of knowledge is with them not with their collages.
2) Why would you claim, on the one hand, that the blame for kids is with their collages and poor teaching, and then claim that i expect everyone to know c cause that's the first thing they learn in engineering?
And, lastly, don't get huffy with me, dude. If you make generalizations like "Any engineering grad in India should know C" good for you. I don't care. I really don't give a damn.
Re: The Story of Engineering Education in India
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually blame the people who hire such idiots. Their lack of knowledge is not the problem. Their lack of curiosity is. Their lack of self-motivation is. Even for "crank the handle, produce output" type of jobs, it's a bad strategy to hire idiots since they will not be doing such jobs for the rest of their lives. Projects change. clients change. Technology changes, and only people with at least a minimal amount of…
Right - the question is pretty open ended, with lots of potential areas to explore after getting a basic answer. As a potential employer, I'm happy to help them learn, but I'm not going to spoon-feed them. If someone is profoundly incurious, maybe they'd be better off working somewhere else. Or in another career field.
Right-o.
Good to go with open ended questions. It's hard for candidates to memorize answers.
Sadly i see lots of these kinds of idiotic strategies on their part :-)
When i started my first company in 95 or thereabouts, i remember a person who just would not open his mouth during the entire interview. I didn't know what to make of him. I then asked my receptionist to talk to him, find out if i was being too rough or intimidating etc.
Turns out that the interviewee did not trust his own command over english enough to answer back.
Once i learned that, i just handed him a free PC, told him to try writing whatever program he wanted in the next few hours and did not set any time limits.
When i came back after lunch, i saw that he had written a complete game ( This was in the DOS days where writing a game was really difficult since there were no high-level game engines around )
The guy eventually turned out to be one of my best programmer.
Re: The Story of Engineering Education in India
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would your colleague waste time on further questions when the interviewee answered that he hasn't heard of lists in python? btw Python's indentation requirement is a difference with C though whether it's a key difference or not is debatable.
Given all of the differences between Python and C, I don't think it's even debatable whether or not the indentation rules in Python are the key difference. I'd say that typing and interpreted vs compiled are both so much more important.
I would have gone with object orientation myself, and a de jure standard library ( but then i am an old bloke from the days before C had a std lib :-)
But i have to admit that most python programs are a joy to read ( thanks to guido's insistence on indentation as part of the specs ) whereas most real-world C code is just horrible ( even code i had written a few years back )